GLOBAL WARMING TREATY EXTENDED BY 200 NATIONS

U.S. has rejected UN-backed Kyoto Protocol’s greenhouse gas limit

DOHA, Qatar 
Seeking to control global warming, nearly 200 countries agreed Saturday to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that limits the greenhouse gas output of some rich countries, but will only cover about 15 percent of global emissions.

The extension was adopted by a U.N. climate conference after hard-fought sessions and despite objections from Russia. The package of decisions also included vague promises of financing to help poor countries cope with climate change, and an affirmation of a previous decision to adopt a new global climate pact by 2015.

Although expectations were low for the two-week conference in Doha, many developing countries rejected the deal as insufficient to put the world on track to fight the rising temperatures that are shifting weather patterns, melting glaciers and raising sea levels. Some Pacific island nations see this as a threat to their existence.

“This is not where we wanted to be at the end of the meeting, I assure you,” said Nauru Foreign Minister Kieren Keke, who leads an alliance of small island states. “It isn’t where we need to be in order to prevent islands from going under and other unimaginable impacts.”

The two-decade-old U.N. climate talks have so far failed in their goal of reducing the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that a vast majority of scientists says are warming the planet. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which controls the emissions of rich countries, is considered the main achievement of the negotiations, even though the United States rejected it because it didn’t impose any binding commitments on China and other emerging economies.

Kyoto was due to expire this year, so failing to agree on an extension would have been a major setback for the talks. Despite objections from Russia, which opposed rules limiting its use of carbon credits, the accord was extended through 2020 to fill the gap until a wider global treaty is expected to take effect.

However, the second phase covers about 15 percent of global emissions after Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Russia opted out.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern highlighted one of the main challenges going forward when he said the U.S. couldn’t accept a provision in the Doha deal that said the talks should be “guided” by principles laid down in the U.N.’s framework convention for climate change.

That could be interpreted as a reference to the firewall between rich and poor countries that has guided the talks, but which the U.S. and other developed countries say must be removed going forward.